According to Forbes magazine, scammers are making unsolicited calls to taxpayers claiming to be IRS officials. Then the scammers threaten those who refuse to pay with arrest, deportation or loss of a business or driver’s license. So far, they’ve raked in over $1 million.

Only in a country where people believe the tax collectors would do something like this could someone be able to pull off this scam.

There has been plenty written about Edward Snowden and his purloined NSA documents. But don’t expect anything to change. Spying by government agencies is endemic. Despite protests to the contrary, congress, the three-letter agencies, and private outfits like Google, Facebook, and Amazon all have strong interests in tracking what you do on the internet.

And the private companies probably present a bigger threat to your privacy than does the government. NSA claims only to read ‘metadata’ from your phone calls and e-mails. Maybe. But Google, for example, already reads your gmail content. When certain key words turn up you can expect Google to push ads to your browser whenever they think they or one of their advertisers can sell you something. Amazon does the same thing when you search their catalog. Suddenly, when you navigate away from Amazon, targeted ads are showing up from companies you’ve never heard of, trying to sell you something you searched for on Amazon.

And they’re not just looking for sales opportunities. Every e-mail you write, every search you do, every web site you visit adds valuable information as to who you are, how old you are, how you vote, or whether you’re having an affair with the boss.

Take control and download the Tor browser. It isn’t perfect, but it will do a lot to protect your privacy. If you’re a regular Facebook or Twitter user, forget about Tor. You’re already giving up so much personal information that Tor won’t be able to do much for you.

In a little-noticed outcome of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, jails and prisons around the country are beginning to sign up inmates for health insurance under the law, taking advantage of the expansion of Medicaid that allows states to extend coverage to single and childless adults — a major part of the prison population… Health care experts estimate that up to 35 percent of those newly eligible for Medicaid under Mr. Obama’s health care law are people with histories of criminal justice system involvement, including jail and prison inmates and those on parole or probation.

New York Times

Of course, as state and local governments begin to transfer the $6.5 billion cost of prisoner health care to the federal government, you can expect to see a commensurate reduction in your state and local taxes.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein has her panties in a bunch because the CIA may have been spying on the members of congress who were supposed to be investigating misdeeds by the CIA. She’s concerned that the CIA may have violated “principles embodied in the US Constitution.”

Poor baby. She was fine with the CIA, NSA, FBI et al spying on 300 million Americans, but on congress? She apparently thinks that congress is exempt from spying because it has managed to exempt itself from almost every other rule that applies to us ‘little people.

Dianne says, “there is no legitimate reason to allege … that Senate staff has committed a crime.’

Dianne, dear, there’s no reason to allege that any American has committed a crime and yet you were comfortable, even silent, about the spying abuses of our three-letter agencies until they landed in your own yard.

If you’ve done nothing wrong, what do you have to fear? That’s what we keep hearing from you and your fellow poltroons.

The Justice Department is investigating whether the CIA may have been spying on members of congress.

Make no mistake. The CIA, FBI, NSA, and other intelligence-gathering agencies of the US government own congress. Do you really think these organizations that already spy on every other American would exempt the 535 people who could do the most for them? They have the goods on every congressman and, if necessary, will conveniently leak stories about any elected official who gets in their way.

The United States government is irretrievably corrupt. This is not about cops taking $50 to suppress a speeding ticket. This is about an entire government that is selling Americans into slavery.